


The Worst of the World and Beyond

by FreckledSkittles



Series: 2020 Barisi ~Spooktober~ [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ghosts, M/M, Mirrors, Other, Realm Hopping, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Spellcasting, rita calhoun is a lesbian witch, sorta lmao, which is either just a witch or just a lesbian depending on who you ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSkittles/pseuds/FreckledSkittles
Summary: Sonny reaches out to touch the mirror, just underneath his reflection. The surface is cold and hard against his fingertips. Mirrors were often used as portals for other worlds, although temporary in its function. Relief floods over him when he watches the mirror ripple, a clear sign it’s being used for communication and is doing more than reflecting his face back at him. But it doesn’t last long: he may have discovered a major break in the case.There’s a person trapped in a realm that communicates with mirrors. And Sonny has to help him.
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Rita Calhoun, Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Series: 2020 Barisi ~Spooktober~ [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975462
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Barisi Creatures Bingo





	1. Clairvoyance

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea of Rafael as a "ghost" (he's not dead, no angst here, friends) for literal months and I was gonna write it for my own ~spooky~ series like I did last year, but then the Fiction Archive said "or you can just do it with us, including like three other fic ideas that you know you're gonna write on time because it's spooky season for god's sake and you need to post something on time that's not delayed by months like your baseball fic"  
> ,.,.,.,.they said all of that I swear
> 
> Anyway here's five chapters of Rafael being dramatic, Sonny being smart, Mike Dodds (MIKE DODDS!!!) with glasses, lesbian witch Rita and her gf Olivia, and Barisi thriving in literally any situation <3

“Before I could say anything,” the fairy says, voice quivering with an overflow of emotions, “he was casting the spell and set the treehouse on fire.” She dabs at her eyes with the tissue Rita offers; the translucent wings behind her dip lower and lower as she continues. “Moira and I were able to salvage some of our belongings before it turned to ash.”

“You said your clan was out on a harvest,” Rita clarifies in a soft voice. Beside her, Rafael is scribbling furiously across his legal pad. “Was anyone hurt?”

The fairy shakes her head. “No, we got out unscathed. A few embers seared my dress, but…” She stops herself and doubles over. A few stray puffs of dust flutter off her hair and wings and land on the carpet.

“Constance,” Rafael states, tone firm but quiet, “we’re going to get your home back to you. He won’t get away with this.”

“And he’s done this before,” Rita adds. “Not only is he being criminally charged by the district attorney, but he’ll also pay for any and all damage that he did. We can guarantee that.”

Constance looks between them. “But the case, it…we haven’t even filed a lawsuit.”

“With the evidence against him, we could do this in our sleep.” Rita offers a comforting smile and reaches a hand out in a silent request. Constance grasps for it like a lifeline. “He targeted you and your clan for being fae. We don’t allow this, the law doesn’t allow it, and we are fighting for you.”

Constance collapses against Rita in a bubble of thankful sobs and woeful hope. Rafael sets aside his notes and stands up to offer his condolences. He sees the fairy out with Rita but he keeps his gaze forward, even when it’s only the two of them in their law firm. He can hear the argument before she even speaks. “Is this pro bono?”

“They lost everything,” Rafael seethes, the knob of the front door digging into his hand as he squeezes around it. “Fae clans are dependent on having a home in whatever realm they’re in so they can keep their magic intact and protect their lives. They shouldn’t have been attacked in the first place.”

“If we aren’t going to charge them for our services, can you at least promise to take a break?”

Rafael turns on his heels and strides down the hall. “No.”

“Rafael, I swear—” Rita matches his pace without missing a beat. “If you burn out, I’m not picking you up.”

“I never asked you to.” He shoots her a glare. “You know as well as I do that the law will only protect them so far. It will guarantee the scum that destroyed their home is put away, but it will not guarantee them proper reparations unless we intervene. As soon as those prosecutors are done touting them around to serve their savior agendas, they’ll be tossed aside as if they were never there in the first place.”

Rita narrows her eyes. “You know that’s not what I’m arguing against. You can be passionate about the cause and take care of yourself. What’s going to happen to our clients if you can’t fight for them?”

“I don’t have to think about it, because it will never happen,” Rafael sneers, and he firmly shuts the door to his office in her face.

* * *

“If you had to choose between Columbia and NYU for school, where would you go?”

Sonny looks over at Mike with a knowing smirk. “Fordham. You’re not gonna break my loyalty.”

Mike gives a drawn-out sigh that is nothing but exaggerated. “It was worth a shot.”

The Columbia Law School Library had been the host of supernatural activity for a week, an official Presence that was unknown in origin but defined broadly to develop proper identification. Books were removed from shelves and tossed across the room; chairs toppled over without anyone nearby; even students had experienced some animosity. Nothing terrible or physical, but if they didn’t pack up fast enough, the Presence would dump out their belongings and scatter them across the floor. The common correlation was students who were in the middle of working on papers or theses. The private firm that conducted supernatural investigations—run by Olivia Benson and place of employment for Mike Dodds and Sonny Carisi—had been contacted to keep away media attention and to solve the issue as quickly as possible. And after Olivia’s visit yesterday to scout the issue, it was officially their case.

“There have been no deaths in the area,” Olivia informs Sonny and Mike as they stroll through the library and make their way to the floor that held the highest amount of activity, bags of equipment slung over their shoulders. The law library had to be cleared of any students or university personnel so they could do their jobs without interruption and to limit any escalations from the Presence. “No rifts have been reported either. It could be something dormant that was recently awakened. The staff is gathering a list of relics owned by the university.”

“Columbia doesn’t have many,” Mike muses aloud. He holds the door open as they enter a room crowded with several aisles of bookshelves. “At least none that are ancient. Those are the only ones powerful enough to cross dimensions.”

“I guess it’s good we’re already in a library,” Sonny points out, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. “The information is already in here.”

Mike and Olivia stay quiet, but there’s a soft thud a few aisles away that sounds like a book dropping to the ground. The Presence must not have enjoyed that.

Sonny pulls out a thermal reader from his jacket pocket. “Air temperature is steady. Whatever is in here, it’s definitely not from the spectral realm.” There’s another dull thud, this one sounding closer than before. The odd sounds or reactions that came with researching poltergeists or unprecedented Presences hardly get reactions out of him anymore. With the time he’s spent working with Olivia and Mike, Sonny doubts he’ll be getting a surprise anytime soon.

“I guess someone doesn’t like dead jokes,” Mike mumbles. The thud comes directly behind them now, just missing the back of Mike’s foot.

“Don’t goad them,” Olivia chides. “We don’t know who’s with us.” She turns around and faces the direction of the noise. “We’re here to help you. If you’re able to, I’d advise you to follow us so we can properly assess your situation.”

“They’re pretty active,” Sonny observes. “Definitely fresh.”

“And responsive,” Mike adds. “I don’t think they have any connection to the spirit world.”

The trio stops at a cluster of desks and sets up their first investigative test. Sonny clears away the chairs from a table while Mike makes an X on its surface with two pieces of tape. Olivia grabs a light book from the shelf behind them and places it on the X.

“I’m going to show you how we can communicate with one another for right now,” she announces. At a neighboring table, Mike pulls out a laptop and opens a Doppler application that will locate the movements of their Presence and record their findings. Sonny fiddles with two large mics and connects them to a tablet in order to gather any audio. With their Presence being as active as it is, they should have no problem grabbing samples from it. “We don’t know your current situation, so while we try and find an easier line, we can use this.” She splays out a hand over the cover of the book. “We’re going to ask you some simple yes-or-no questions. If your answer is no, you can knock the book off the table. If your answer is yes, you can slide the book across the table,” Olivia moves the book over the surface and returns it to the X, “like this.” She steps away a few feet back from the table. “Can you demonstrate ‘yes’ for me?”

There are only a few seconds of silence before the book moves across the surface of the table on its own and is neatly returned to the X. Sonny watches the mics pick up the scrape; their equipment is designed to read past their human capabilities, but there hasn’t been anything supernatural gathered from their Presence. Mike, however, taps his shoulder to grab his attention. On his screen, there are four energy sources being shown on the tracker. Two figures close together must be them; the other two are positioned where Olivia must be. One of them has to be the Presence they’re here to investigate.

“Do you see anything strange?” He whispers. Sonny shakes his head; Mike points to one of the signatures. “This extra one, next to Olivia, looks too much like ours. Whatever is here with us, it’s not entirely gone. It could even be from our world.”

“And it could be stuck in a realm like ours,” Sonny concludes.

“Are you two ready?” Olivia asks them, less of an attempt to stop their theories and more an encouragement to focus on their current task. Once they find out more about whoever is causing problems in the library of Columbia’s law school, the quicker they can find a way to help their guest.

Mike and Sonny both nod and return to their respected tasks. Olivia turns to her station and asks her first question. “Are you recently deceased?”

The book falls off the table and to the floor, noticeably forceful as it promptly thuds against the worn carpet. Right before it dropped, the mics picked up a scratch of audio undetectable by human ears. Sonny flags it in the recording to review later.

Olivia nods. The book is picked off the floor. “Are you human?” The book scrapes over the table and promptly returns to the X. Olivia lets out a sigh and turns back to them. “Search our database and cross-reference that. We need any and all possible realms that could come in contact with ours without crossing the Ethereal Border.”

“Their energy is reading like ours,” Sonny points out; Mike is already typing and scrolling through their records. “This might be someone from our world.”

Olivia hums in understanding and turns to the book. “Is that true? Are you from here?” The book is nudged just barely over the X. Two more spikes in audio, both longer than the first, pop up. Sonny flags them. “Do you know what happened to you?” The book jerks again. The indications are getting choppier, more forceful, like the being pushing them is angry. “Is someone responsible for doing this to you?”

The book flies off the table with how quickly it shoots off the X. It bangs into the wall, drops to the floor, and stays there. Mike eyes the tracker on his screen, opened beside a window for his database searching, and frowns. “They’re gone.”

“Dammit,” Olivia huffs and pulls out a portable tracker from her bag. “What do we know about them?”

“Well, aside from the questions we asked,” Sonny says, toying with the volume and preparing the sounds that had been picked up on their mics, “we got a few audio clips from them.”

The first one is nothing more than an offended rumble of sound, recorded right after the question of being alive. No words are deciphered in it, so it has to be nothing more than a disgruntled noise. The second and third sounds are actual sentences, based on their length and the actual content itself. “ _ It doesn’t take geniuses to figure that one out. _ ” is quickly followed by “ _ I’m the only one here _ .” Both come after asking if the Presence is from their world, and both are leveled with fuming irritation. It wouldn’t take a lot for someone to be mad if they were transported to another realm, but the anger sounds too personal.

“They’re a human from our world and they know what happened to them,” Sonny continues, reminding them of what their findings had just told them, and turns the volume off for now. “They could have fallen into a stray scar in time that trapped them in a neighboring realm. Some wyverns move too much when they travel between realms and cause rips that bleed into our realm.”

“I dunno,” Mike frowns, “judging from their reaction, this wasn’t an accident. And if they know who did this, they might be vengeful.”

No matter how human or undead one could be, a being could decay away enough of their physical state to shift into a spectral state that removes their living status. And all it took was a few negative and strong emotions. If this person had a temper, and they were unlucky with where they had ended up, they might not last long enough in whatever location they dwell in. It could quickly turn to a race against the clock to save the Presence.

Olivia walks around the library with the portable tracker while Mike and Sonny dig deeper into finding out where this person is stuck. Olivia comes back without any progress and dismisses the two for a break. Mike runs to grab them dinner so they can refuel before crafting theories and locating the Presence. Sonny isolates the tidbits of audio that had been picked up from their equipment to listen to later for their final case report and then heads to the bathroom.

He realizes he isn’t alone while he washes his hands and checks out his reflection. There is no one else in the bathroom with him, and the space beside him is empty, but the mirror tells him there is another person there with him. He doesn’t know when he had joined, or if he had always been there, but there is definitely someone leaning over the bathroom counter, hands clenched on the edge, brows drawn in a fierce scowl and head bowed.

Sonny reaches out to touch the mirror, just underneath his reflection. The surface is cold and hard against his fingertips. Mirrors were often used as portals for other worlds, although temporary in its function. Relief floods over him when he watches the mirror ripple, a clear sign it’s being used for communication and is doing more than reflecting his face back at him. But it doesn’t last long: he may have discovered a major break in the case.

There’s a person trapped in a realm that communicates with mirrors. And Sonny has to help him.


	2. Curiosity

Sonny is not new to the world of supernatural investigation, but he hasn’t tried to reach out to a Presence without his coworkers. In their line of work, it was heavily advised by anyone employed for detective work, public or private, that they always work with at least one other person when following a lead. Sonny knows this is not an ideal situation, but their Presence had already escaped from them once. In order to take care of this case, he’ll have to act professionally and with as little errors as possible.

“Uh, hi.”

“FUCK.”

The person stumbles back at his voice, green eyes wide and gawking at him in alarm. He’s dressed in a white dress shirt and pink suspenders that compliment the rosy pink of his tie. He collides with the stall behind him, even though it’s only witnessed in the mirror. The figure is unseen without the mirror’s assistance but the action still rings out behind Sonny. He keeps an eye on the mirror while he steps back to give the Presence some space and to not overwhelm him.

“Fuck,” the Presence whispers. His hands fly up to his hair and dig through the dark brown strands. “Shit. You were…” He points at the bathroom door, but Sonny stays trained on his eyes. They shift from the mirror to Sonny, hurried and overwhelmed. “Fuck.”

“I came from the library,” Sonny says, keeping his tone low and gentle. Olivia’s guidance echoes in his head: be gentle, be cautious, be kind. “Were you in there too?”

“I don’t know. I was in  _ a _ room with bookshelves, talking to Nancy Drew’s interns, and then I left, and now I’m…” The Presence drops his hands, a flash of anger suddenly crossing his features, and he lunges forward. The mirror trembles against the wall from the force. Sonny takes a startled hop back. “Get me out of here!”

“I don’t know how to do that!” His voice rises a few inches too high, slipping from his control. Maybe he should have gotten Olivia first. “I don’t even know where you are!”

“I’m in a mirror,” the Presence knocks against the glass, “obviously. Have you ever dealt with the paranormal before?”

“That’s why I’m here. It’s my job.”

“Your performance leaves a bit more to be desired.”

Sonny scowls and crosses his arms defiantly. “I’ll keep that in mind for my performance review.”

The Presence presses both hands against the mirror and lets out a long sigh. He’s handsome, all things considered, but his attitude can be more polite. Then again, if Sonny were trapped in another realm where his only form of communication was through mirrors, he would be just as impatient and desperate.

Realms were tricky to manage. Some of them were occurring simultaneously to one another, while others exceeded time or space or both. For the most part, as far as Sonny had read, there were ways different realms could communicate between one another, often with the use of another medium. Some creatures used nature as transport between realms. They were lucky that mirror communication was common in their world, but unlucky to pinpoint how their Presence had ended up in a different one—let alone which one.

Sonny pulls out his cellphone and raises it for the Presence to see. He can only do so much in a bathroom inside a university library. “Would you mind if I made a call to my partners?”

“Yes, actually, I have a dentist appointment at two,” the Presence sneers, nose wrinkling in disgust.

Sonny dials Olivia’s number and checks the time before he puts the phone to his ear. “Well, you missed it. It’s three-thirty.”

Sonny tells Mike and Olivia about his discovery in the bathroom and they come up with a plan. If they can get a mirror to their setup, they can directly communicate with the Presence that involves an actual conversation. In the meantime, Sonny is advised to stay with the Presence until they can get a proper mirror to the library. Telling him as much earns him a wayward glance and nothing else, but it’ll have to do for now.

“This’ll be better for you in the long run,” Sonny points out. “The quicker we can figure out what’s going on, the quicker we can get you out.”

“I could just tell you,” the Presence huffs. “You’re right here with me. There’s no need to go through all that effort.”

“Mike and Olivia have a couple more years of experience on me. Plus, Olivia’s a ranked officer in supernatural investigations. She knows way more than I do. Besides, it’s just a mirror.” The Presence shifts, his eyes looking off to the side as he drifts off. If Sonny didn’t know any better, he would say the Presence was nervous, either somewhat unrelated to his predicament or masked well. “You’re doing great, all things considered.”

The Presence rolls his eyes. “Thank you for the dry optimism.”

“No, I mean it. You’re handling this well—”

The Presence slams his hands against the mirror again. It quivers and knocks against the wall. “Handling what, my entrapment? I don’t know how long I’ve been trapped in whatever world I’m in, I’m soaking wet, there’s phlegm everywhere, and you think I’m handling this well?” Sonny gulps at the fierce fire glaring at him through the clear ripples of the mirror. “You know nothing about this…this…” With a defeated grunt, the Presence drops to the ground and hugs himself. His shoulders shake with each breath he takes, and his hands curl in front of his eyes. As quickly as the fight had appeared, it has vanished from his form.

It was never personal, Sonny tells himself, and a wave of pity overtakes him. He doesn’t know how long the Presence has been in that realm, if he’s been alone, if he’s had to fight just to survive. He can only be feeling lonely and afraid, his last defense being a lashing out to a stranger and the type of yelling that rubs his throat raw. All crafted from pure and flaming anger that shines in green.

Sonny climbs onto the bathroom counter and pulls his legs up to his chest so he can properly see the Presence. He can’t offer a lot, he doesn’t have much information, but he knows how to talk to others. And Olivia always told him and Mike that if they had no other options, their first method of getting out of a situation was to use their strongest assets first. “Hey, I don’t think I ever got your name.”

The Presence doesn’t move. His breathing has eased down, but there’s a clear line of tension in his shoulders and back. When he speaks, his voice is strained and watery. “Rafael.”

“Rafael,” Sonny repeats, and he gives a nod. “I like it. You can call me Sonny.”

Past his hands, the Presence—Rafael—snorts. “Please tell me that’s not your real name.”

Sonny laughs, even though it has a bit more force to it than he would have liked. “No, it’s Dominick, but I prefer Sonny. ‘Dominick’ just sounds too…hard, I guess.” He wracks his brain for something else to talk about, something mindless to keep them both occupied, and looks over at Rafael. Almost instantly, his eyes are drawn to the pink suspenders strapped over his shoulders. “I like your suspenders. You pull off pink really well.”

Rafael makes a sound akin to a hum. “Thanks. I’m glad you can see them.” He pushes himself up to his feet again but stays standing. “I can’t see the color anymore.”

Sonny frowns. He must have been in there longer than they thought. Or he ended up in a realm that was less populated with people and supernatural beings and more overgrown with grime. “You look fine to me.”

“The mirror is probably providing one-way communication. I can only see your world as much as the mirror allows, but you can’t see any of mine.” Rafael shakes his head and sighs. “That sounds like I’ve accepted this whole fucking thing. Your world is as much as mine as it is yours.”

“It is. What do you do here?”

Rafael straightens up, almost with pride, when he answers. “I run a law firm. I represent paranormal beings who have been discriminated against or otherwise attacked. Wrongful deaths, civil suits, liability cases. They deserve a lot more than our laws give them.”

“I’ve seen as much. I went to law school and took a course on supernatural laws. It’s ridiculous how much you can get away with, even today.”

“Law school, huh?”

“Yep, Fordham Law.”

The corners of Rafael’s mouth twitch in a coy smirk. “If we ever have an opening, I’ll keep you in mind.”

Sonny grins. It’s not much help, but it’s better than nothing. And if the release of tension in Rafael’s shoulders is any indication, he managed to do some good.

* * *

A full-length mirror is propped up in the library and ready for use. Rafael assures Sonny before he leaves the bathroom that he can find his way back to their room. Sonny returns to the library to find three chairs facing the mirror at an angle to provide an image of the Presence. But when Rafael appears on its surface, Olivia immediately excuses herself, phone in hand and head bowed as she hurriedly leaves the room. Mike takes up the lead of the conversation, despite sharing a confused look with Sonny.

“So, Rafael,” Mike begins, looking over a pad of notes about their case, “we have reports that you’ve caused some trouble with students studying in the library for the past week.”

“To be fair, their work was horrendous,” Rafael scoffs. “Any competent lawyer would tear their arguments apart during a cross.”

Mike shoots Sonny an exasperated work; Sonny only shrugs. He had already witnessed Rafael’s prickly attitude. And being a lawyer himself, the types of mistakes a young law student makes are memories to him now. If he saw them today, he would be offended by them too. “How were you able to interact with them? Were there mirrors in the rooms?”

Rafael gives a small shrug. “I’m not sure. I didn’t know I was at Columbia until you two said so.”

“Alright, so let’s go back a bit,” Sonny suggests. “What do you remember before you were sent to the realm you’re in now?”

Rafael takes a pause to think about his answer. “I was at work, at my law firm. My partner was in her office.”

“Partner in law or marriage?” Mike asks, scribbling on the pad in his lap.

“Law; we found the firm about seven years ago. We were writing arguments for a trial next month. After that, it’s…” Rafael rubs his eyes, sighing deeply. “It’s all fuzzy.”

“Try as best you can. Anything will do.”

“No, I mean everything went fuzzy. In the middle of writing my summations, I couldn’t see anything and it felt like the floor fell underneath me. Next thing I knew, I landed in this strange slime.” Rafael shakes his hand for emphasis, although whatever goop he’s referring to is unseen. The one-way mirror only allows them to see Rafael, not his surroundings, and whatever image of their world is reflected.

Mike hums to himself and mumbles softly under his breath. “Fuzzy, strange slime…” He leans over the table so he can pull his laptop over, tugging his glasses off his head and back on his nose. “Keep talking. Sonny, take notes.”

Sonny nods and turns to a new page on his notepad. Rafael looks between them but says nothing. “Well, ah, it looks like you’ve been stuck there for a week,” Sonny says. “Is there anything you can tell us about your surroundings?”

“If you say we’re in a library, and based on what the mirror is showing me, I can only assume this world is replicating it,” Rafael states. “Bookshelves, tables, the hallways.” He peeks behind the reach of the mirror with a quiet snort. “The chairs you’ve rearranged moved in here as well. The only difference is the slime that’s covering everything.”

“What color is the slime?”

“It depends. In the bathroom, it was green, but in here, it’s more of a dark pink.”

Sonny wracks his brain for any worlds that meet that criteria: slimy, duplication of another realm, perhaps uninhabited at first glance. He knows of several realms that are duplicates of another, but there are several unknowns about the contents of those realms and if there is a finite amount of them, especially of the one they’re living in. “Have you met any other beings or living creatures?”

“No. As far as I know, I’m the only one here.” There’s a twinge of sadness accompanying the statement, a sort of melancholy that can only come with a lack of communication. Rafael doesn’t seem like the type of person to reveal that type of information every day, but there are a lot of firsts in this case, Sonny reminds himself. That can be one of them for now.

“I could throw out an estimated guess on your location,” Mike speaks up, eyes still trained on his laptop, “but there are too many possibilities to pinpoint one. I need more details.”

Rafael scowls; Sonny ignores it and leans over to look at Mike’s list. “He can interact with our environment, like the books and the bathroom stalls. Try crossing out realms that can’t do that.” He turns back to the mirror when Mike nods and proceeds to narrow the search. “Aside from messing with students, what else have you been doing?”

The corners of Rafael’s lips twitch up in amusement. “Would you like a full synopsis?”

“Just a recap is fine.”

Rafael smirks. “Well, as I said earlier, I didn’t know where I was specifically until you two mentioned it. As much as my surroundings replicate yours, the mess makes it harder to decipher anything that’s not being interacted with. And it’s…difficult to leave the area.”

“How so?”

“There are two study rooms on this floor, yes? I don’t have any memory of walking or traveling between them. Even going between the bathroom and coming back here was unusual. There’s nothing human about this realm, no matter how much it may look like the library you say I’m in.”

Mike perks up at the mention of traveling. “How was it unusual? It took you a minute or so to get here after the mirror was prepared.”

Rafael pauses before answering. “I wasn’t necessarily walking. It felt more like teleporting from one spot to another.”

As soon as the words leave his lips, fingers furiously typing, Mike’s smile spreads across his face. “I think we may have something.”

“Before that happens,” Olivia cuts in, returning to the room, no longer on the phone but looking more composed and determined than when she left, “we need to talk.”

Rafael’s face falls when his gaze meets hers. Something akin to recognition crosses over his face. “Oh. So you are…”

Olivia nods as he trails off. “I am. And you are—”

“Yes.” Rafael leans back in his chair and sighs. “I would have liked to have met you any other way.”

“The same goes for me. Trust me on that.”

“Do you two know each other or something?” Sonny asks, glancing between the mirror and his boss.

Olivia’s gaze hardens. “Rita will explain everything.”


	3. Confrontation

“Hold on, your witch girlfriend cast a spell on her law partner so he could learn a lesson?”

Rita scowls at Mike’s explanation. “When you say it like that, it’s just mean.”

Mike’s eyes widen and he lets out an offended scoff. “Oh, I’m sorry, is there a better way to say that?”

According to Olivia, she had recognized Rafael as soon as he saw him based on the photos she had seen in her girlfriend Rita’s apartment. Rafael and Rita had founded a law firm that specializes in representing paranormal beings. Olivia had called Rita to check on Rafael and the truth had spiraled out from there, including what Mike had already discovered: Rafael was in Metaforá, a realm typically used for travel between two realms with different environments and structures, especially by non-human creatures. The four of them stand outside of the room aligned with bookcases and tables, and the mirror, to try and make sense of everything.

Rita rolls her eyes. “None of you know Rafael like I do,” she states firmly. “He’s a workaholic. He spends the majority of his time at our firm. I didn’t put him in Metaforá to hurt him. The spell I cast was based on freeing him temporarily from work—and his own vanity.” She eyes the room the four of them stand outside of. “The bastard doesn’t even hesitate to look at himself in a mirror. Like he knows where it is the minute he walks into a room.”

“And now he can’t do that, because he’s in the mirror,” Sonny says, trying to rein in the irritation in his voice. He can understand the motive as much as he wants but it doesn’t sit right with him that Rita would trap her colleague—someone she saw every day—because he was too obsessed with his looks and his work. “And he’s not doing work.”

“When were you going to tell us?” Olivia asks.

“It wasn’t supposed to go on for this long,” Rita argues. “I was keeping an eye on him.”

“Not well enough.”

Rita sighs and extends her hand out to her girlfriend. Olivia takes it with trepidation. “Even so, I didn’t think you’d get his case.”

“Can you undo it?” Mike asks.

“I can,” Rita nods, “but I won’t.”

“He’s been there for a week,” Sonny says, stepping closer to Rita. She barely flinches at the limited space between them now. “He’s dirty, he hasn’t seen or talked to anyone for a week, his only interactions have been with us and college students with shitty papers. Not to mention the realm he’s in isn’t designed for a long-term residency. Give me one good reason why he should stay there.”

“Because he didn’t learn his lesson. When he knew I wouldn’t be letting up in keeping him locked in Metaforá, he went to Columbia Law to make up for his inability to work. If I take him out, he won’t learn anything.”

“What does he have to learn,” Olivia frowns, “how to be human?”

Rita gives her a sad smile. “I can come home to a nice girlfriend. We go on dates. We see movies and critique them in the theater. I have a life outside of work. Rafael doesn’t. And yet he is so deserving of one. I can’t let my best friend choke on his own loneliness without getting the chance to live.”

Olivia sighs, squeezing Rita’s hand between her own. “You could have just told him that. You didn’t have to curse him.”

“It’s not a curse, it’s a spell. And you say that like I haven’t tried talking to him already. He’s a stubborn bastard, Liv.”

“I’ve seen that now, no thanks to you.”

“I was going to introduce you, but again, the work we do is important enough that he doesn’t have a life outside of it.”

“So what now?” Sonny asks. “Are we supposed to tell him this?”

“Rita will do it,” Olivia states. Rita doesn’t look pleased to have been volunteered for the position, but she doesn’t protest. “He deserves to know what’s happening.”

“I hope you’re prepared for the backlash,” Rita sighs. “He loves to share his opinions.” She opens the door to the main floor of the law library and steps inside. Olivia stops Sonny and Mike from following her.

“I hope you two can understand having to leave you on a cliffhanger,” she says, followed by a half-attempt at a laugh that isn’t boiling with tension. “I’m sorry I couldn’t explain everything at that moment.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Mike assures her, Sonny nodding in agreement beside him. “You had information we didn’t and you had to check with your source before you did anything else. We get it.”

“Were you able to get anything from Rafael at least?”

“We actually went backward from where you were and ended up at the same conclusion,” Sonny says. He hands over the notepad he had been holding since Olivia had interrupted their friendly interrogation. “Rafael said he never felt like he was moving when he’s gone between rooms in the library. He compared it to teleporting if only because he has no memory of traveling from point A to point B.”

“And Metaforá is a crossroad for realms,” Olivia muses as she roves over Sonny’s notes. “But where does the slime come in? I thought Metaforá was mostly empty to make up for the amount of travel it guides.”

“It could be an after-effect of Rita’s spell or a spill from another realm. I’ve also heard it can happen as a side effect when Metaforá isn’t used for its intended purpose.”

Olivia scoffs at that. “And we know Rita won’t win an award for her moral decisions this time.” She eyes her girlfriend, who is hopefully making amends to her law partner. It sounds like they are, going off on laughter alone, but Sonny can’t see the mirror from where he’s standing. “Now that we know the full story, I want to close this case today.”

“Agreed,” Mike says. “I’ll try to see if there’s any way to reach Metaforá without magic.”

“That sounds good. Sonny, can you keep up a rapport with Rafael? You have more experience talking to him.”

“Already on it,” Sonny smiles. It wasn’t necessarily difficult to talk to Rafael—he just needed a bit of freedom to speak his mind and verbally spar with a worthy opponent without being restricted from using his voice. And Sonny could be that for him, both on command and through his own want to battle with him.

The three enter the room to Rafael’s hard but amused scolding and Rita’s playful winking that precedes her own sharp quips.

“Hello again,” Rafael nods as he glances over at the trio. “Have we all caught up? Can I finally leave?”

“Almost,” Olivia says with a smile, definitely the one she uses to help comfort someone before bad news breaks. Mike returns to his laptop as Olivia continues; Sonny notices irritation instantly crease Rafael’s brows.

“It should be as easy as reversing the spell.” His gaze flicks between the four of them. “That isn’t complicated to do.”

Rita sighs, crossing her arms in front of her. “Do you know where I put you?”

Rafael scoffs. “I don’t even know why you did it.”

“You’re in a realm that’s typically used for transportation between two realms.”

“Metaforá? How the hell did you manage that? People, let alone living things, aren’t meant to survive here. We’ve transported between realms before and we both know Metaforá isn’t designed for long-term survival.”

“I didn’t think you’d spend a week there. Look,” Rita steps closer to the mirror, “I cast that spell because you need to do something else in your life that isn’t work.” Rafael rolls his eyes, an indication that he’s heard this conversation before—at least twice, if not more. Rita continues as if he hasn’t reacted. “If I’m at home with Olivia, or I’m taking her on a date, you’re at the office or writing an argument for our next cross. You don’t know how to take a step back for yourself. It was different, luckily, when we were both new at this and the only thing we had to do was build our brand and establish a name for ourselves. But that was seven years ago, Rafael.”

“That doesn’t mean we stop working.”

“Really?  _ That’s _ gonna be your argument?!” At the shout of her voice, Rafael steps back and turns away. “You don’t get to use that argument. I put just as much work into our firm as you do! I started it with you so we could help the paranormal, not so I could watch you work yourself to death.”

“I’m not dying, but I will be if I stay in here any longer!” He points in the general direction where Mike is still on his laptop. “Look up how long it takes for a body to break down after long-term exposure to Metaforá.”

“Rafael—”

“No!” When he faces Rita again, the left side of the mirror cracks a bit. Sonny sees it more than he hears it, but Mike stands up immediately. The mirror could keep up communications as long as the glass wasn’t broken on either end. There were numerous forces that could crack it, including negative reactions that induced sharp yelling. “You put me in here, Rita! Of the four people in that room, you’re the only one who can get me out! If you wanna talk about death,” he grips either side of the mirror on his side, “you better be ready to revive me the second I get out of here.”

Rita swallows but remains firm in her stance, hands curled at her side and eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “You aren’t going to guilt me. You’re still a stubborn bitch. You’re so set in your ways, you’d rather die than admit that working every damn day, never taking a vacation, not even going out for drinks or a coffee or a fucking walk might be good for you! Why would I let you out when you haven’t been able to see the good that’s out there?”

“If you don’t want to let me out, then don’t do it! I’m starting to like the place!” Rafael moves back again, this time expanding the two cracks and causing more to pop up on the outer edge. The image flickers and reveals a brief slick of purple—in the background, over the image itself, covering Rafael from head to toe—before returning to normal.

Olivia steps forward and grabs Rita’s shoulder. “Stop provoking him,” she says sternly.

“You think I’m trying to?” Rita hisses.

“No, but if you keep going, he’ll break the mirror.”

“Is the mirror cracking?” Rafael asks. The venom is still in his voice, poisonous at every corner. When no one answers, Rafael rears a leg back and aims a kick into the bottom of the mirror. Shards of glass spread out at Rita’s feet as the image wavers and cuts out about a fourth of the projection.

“Rafael, no!” Olivia shouts, pulling Rita back and grabbing the mirror’s frame. “If it breaks, we can’t help you.”

“Good.” The image flickers again; some purple slime drips down the side of Rafael’s face and plops on his shoulder. “It’s like Rita said—I’d rather die than admit there’s anything worth living for.” A pained sadness wells in his eyes; Sonny can’t tell if it’s from tears or not. “Just the other day, the queen of a fairy clan came to us because their home was destroyed. They like this realm but they had to return to their origins since they can’t be supported without some sort of home to refresh their magic. Ironic, considering the fact that they had to go through Metaforá for it.” The cracks distort the image now, wavering over his face and across his body. “Last week, we lost a case where a werewolf family was fined for defending their den. The mother had lost a son there, but the humans who attacked their home weren’t held accountable. So you look at me and tell me,” Rafael glares right through them, an arrow fired from a bow and hitting a bulls-eye, “what good is there for me when there are monsters willing to tear others down?”

The image fizzles out, the mirror shatters, and the frame drips with purple slime.

* * *

It is decided that Sonny will make a venture into Metaforá to rescue Rafael. Rita leaves to gather ingredients for a spell to send him there but she doesn’t participate in the conversation when she’s with them. Olivia ends up speaking for her when a nod or shake of her head can’t give them a proper answer. Sonny had volunteered to travel to Metaforá in the first place. If he didn’t have a slight advantage when talking to Rafael, his natural capabilities for communicating and talking well enough to get someone to lower their guard would have convinced them.

“I need you to keep a few things in mind while you’re in there,” Mike says, glasses perched on his head as he helps Sonny into an extra layer of protective clothing for cross-realm travel. “Metaforá isn’t bound to the same laws or physics as other realms. In other words, you don’t necessarily have a body when you’re in there.”

“Sorta like the spectral realm,” Sonny adds.

Mike gives him a soft smile. “Exactly. But since it has a purpose that isn’t primarily residential, its transportation properties won’t disable just because you’re in there. It will still be used as a middle ground for transportation.”

“Okay?” Sonny tilts his head. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’ll be loud. Much louder than when you use it for traveling.” Mike pulls out a pair of large headphones and drapes them around Sonny’s neck. “Before you go in, put these on. They’ll keep the noise out. The sound isn’t as prominent when you’re using Metaforá for its purpose, but I can’t be sure if it’ll work when you find Rafael. Either way, I’m putting in another pair of headphones with a pen and paper and a mic set into your travel bag.”

Sonny notices, while Mike puts said materials into his bag, that Rita—recently returning from grabbing items on her grocery list—hasn’t let her eyes wander off him. She barely bats an eye when she’s caught, and instead bottles whatever brew she had concocted from her makeshift station on a free table. She walks over to them, the concern on her features much more pronounced up close, her brows drawn together and her eyes flashing with a glimmer of meek hope.

“When you find him, you can open this to bring you back here,” she states.

Sonny nods and hands the vial over to Mike to put in the bag. “I’ll make sure he’s on board before I open it.”

“Good. I meant it when I said he’s stubborn. He won’t go along with your idea unless he thinks of it himself.”

“I think that’s more conceited than stubborn,” Sonny tries to joke, anything to ease her nerves, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Rita nods. She hesitates for a moment before adding, “I don’t like this. I know we have to get him back, but he won’t learn anything if we bring him back.”

“Maybe,” Sonny says, “but he’s been in there long enough. Don’t you think he should come back before he gets hurt?”

Before Rita can answer, her expression growing sadder at that, Olivia asks them if they’re ready to begin the spell. She had cleared some space for Rita to cast the spell and let Sonny into Metaforá similarly to how Rafael had gotten in, albeit with a bit more leeway. The spell might be a bit kinder to him if he was choosing to go on his own rather than going there by a friend’s accord.

With his supplies bagged and his headphones over his ears, Sonny sits on the floor and closes his eyes, remembering that Rafael said the world went fuzzy before he was trapped. He knows Rita has begun casting the spell based on the shifting energy surrounding him. The hairs on his arm stand up as the energy wraps around his waist and weighs him down, practically pulling him into Metaforá. For a second, his body lurches at the change in atmosphere, the raw exposure that comes with switching between realms, and then he’s shoved out. It feels less like floating and more like falling but Sonny opens his eyes and sees the same shape of the library below him through a haze of purple. The air sticks to him as he finally lands on the ground and instantly covers him in a slimy residue.

There should be a mirror portal popping up soon—Olivia’s proposal to check on him before their only way to watch him is with their tracker for any Presence around them—so Sonny gets used to his surroundings while waiting for them. To say that everything is covered in shades of purple is an understatement; “covered” implies the original color is hiding underneath. In Metaforá, everything  _ is _ purple. There’s no light source in the room, but the slime on the floor glows enough to allow him to see into the violet mist in front of him. When traveling between realms, the color wasn’t an issue. But using Metaforá as a place of residency outside of the boundaries of transportation didn’t provide the same protections.

Sonny can just make out the shape of a table and three shapes of people surrounding it. One of the figures is sitting down, typing on a vaguely square device; the other two are facing each other. Sonny removes one side of the headphones to try and hear what they’re saying, but the roar of transporting bodies and the whirring energies that connects different realms is overwhelming. He puts the headphone back on properly—how has Rafael not lost his mind while he was in here? No wonder he messed with the law students.

There’s no real way for Sonny to know how much time is passing or if it’s passing at all, and the two figures don’t seem to be stopping their conversation anytime soon. He can only assume it’s Rita and Olivia but he couldn’t hear them if he wanted to, and they’re more like blobs than their characteristics. Sonny looks at the figure sitting down and, taking a step forward, gently pushes the notepad beside him off of the table. It flashes into its original appearance when he touches it but returns to purple when it leaves his touch.

The three figures turn to it, but they don’t acknowledge him. And even if they could see him, Sonny is already heading in a direction in the hopes that he can run into one person in a flat world.


	4. Confide

Sonny wanders into nothing. A few times, “Purple Haze” gets stuck in his head while he steps through slimy globs of purple and covers himself in misty droplets that grow bigger each time he passes through a cloud. The shapes around him have evolved into blobs he cannot identify if he tried. If he’s still in the library, he hopes that Mike can still keep track of him, but if he remembers what Rafael said about traveling, trying to track him could be pointless.

While he walks, Sonny thinks. There are few ways to reach Metaforá that don’t include casting a spell or creating a tear in time. It isn’t a world to sustain life, but, rather, to connect worlds that can. There are rumors it wasn’t naturally developed or created, but he hasn’t found proof of it. He looks up when a beam of transportation whizzes directly over him and wonders if the beings inside can see him. Of the times he’s crossed over to another realm, he can only remember a few when he paid attention to the purple waves that surrounded him—without the slimy touches, thankfully—and propelled him to his destination.

Metaforá reminds him of Purgatory the more Sonny walks toward nothing. It’s a middle ground for realms and exists purely for transport from one realm to another. Perhaps it’s his Catholic upbringing, but Sonny can only think of Metaforá, including the mysteries of it, as a sort of temporary Purgatory for different realms. Only so much is known about Metaforá. It’s rare that anyone steps foot in this area between realms without cause. And any reports that have been received don’t have as many specific references as he would like.

It isn’t much longer until he comes to a somewhat identifiable location: Central Park, best recognized by Sonny with its curved bridges, but also from the eerie feeling that he’s been in this spot before. Sonny looks around him to find trees reaching above his head, the image hazy from the way he’s viewing it but at least identifiable. The path looks familiar, walking down its indents  _ feels _ like something he’s done, and the peek of sound he gets when he partially removes the left side of his headphones overflows with the familiar sounds of a park. Sonny preferred Washington Square Park, but there was undefinable magic that followed the iconic and well-known Central Park.

The road he walks on is populated with bikers, walkers, joggers, and the occasional kid, all shapes he can only see the form of but nothing more. He wonders if anyone can see him, or if it’s just another warm spot. The weather, he recalls, was rather nice for a chilly fall day, but a spot on a path that feels human but is unseen may be out of place. Or perhaps he’s thinking too much into it.

“Why are you here?”

Well. At least he found the person he was looking for.

Sonny turns around to find Rafael standing a few feet away from him, arms crossed and scowling. He’s shorter than Sonny expected—the mirrors didn’t exactly clue him in on height differences—and dirtier as well, covered from head to toe in a thick coat of slime. Some of it has attempted to be cleaned away but there are still speckles covering his torso and face. Sonny doesn’t feel dirty but he must have something on him if the examined stare Rafael shoots him tells him anything.

Sonny drops his headphones to rest around his neck. “I’m here to check on you,” he says. The mixed sounds of the transports occurring above them and the park around them are not as loud now that they’re communicating. “You left pretty suddenly.”

Rafael cocks a brow. “You sure it’s not to swoop in and rescue me from myself?”

Sonny shrugs. “You mentioned it, not me.”

“Huh.” Rafael turns away and starts walking down the path. Sonny follows after him, keeping in time with his fast steps. He has longer legs, but Rafael has a quicker stride. “For a second there, you were almost funny.”

“You mean you didn’t think I was funny before?”

“I did until you suggested your only reason for being here is me. And as happy as I am to finally meet you in person,” Rafael spares him a glance, unamused and flat, “I have more important things to worry about.”

Sonny frowns but bites back from saying anything. The fact that Rafael is trying to convince him that there is anything worth staying for in Metaforá concerns him. Drifting between realms in a world designed for high-speed and inhuman travel, as useless to their world as a ghost, cannot be a better alternative to admitting to being a workaholic. “Sure. Who am I to judge? Still, Rita was worried.”

Rafael eyes him with a mixture of doubt and caution. “Right. After the information she revealed today, I’m sure she does.”

“I mean, you can at least get where she’s coming from, right? She—” Rafael slips and nearly falls into the slime beneath them, and Sonny grabs his arm to help steady him again. “She’s just concerned about her friend.”

“I’ve known her since college. She’s shown her concern in better ways than this.” When he steadies himself again, Rafael shrugs Sonny off and walks faster. “This isn’t it.” They pass the shape of two women sitting on a park bench. When he passes them, Rafael knocks one of their hats off their head. For a brief second, the image comes through and the navy blue baseball cap is recognizable through the purple haze around them. As soon as the contact breaks, the hat is back to purple, and a new layer of slime coats Rafael’s hand.

Sonny quickens his stride and manages to step in front of Rafael. If he loses track of him, Sonny doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get him back. The information he has on Metaforá is limited, but his experience is outdone by Rafael’s week. He could probably escape from his sights and make sure they never run into each other. “Look, I don’t wanna argue about that, because you’d win by a longshot, alright? But at the very least, consider what she did. She saw a friend in need and through all the times she’s tried to communicate her concerns, their response was enough to goad her into doing this.”

Rafael scoffs, looking him up and down again. “Take my advice—don’t try and talk about something you have no knowledge of and no business knowing. You’ll save yourself some time and embarrassment.”

“Do you want me to say you pissed her off so much, she decided to cast a spell that forced you to realize you have more going wrong in your life than you realize?”

“I’d rather you leave. In whatever way you plan on doing it.”

Sonny crosses his arms, unable to prevent the boiling anger from rising in his chest. “Rafael, you can’t live here—”

“You’re a stranger,” Rafael cuts him off, “who I first met through a mirror. And even if I did know you, I wouldn’t leave just because you want me to. So unless you have a plan to throw me over your shoulder and physically remove me yourself, I’m staying in this world.”

“Then I guess I’m staying too.” When Rafael rolls his eyes, Sonny leans forward to capture his gaze again. “I came here for a reason, but if I have to wait for it to happen, I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

“Fine.” Rafael pushes past him and walks further down the path. A bench materializes from the park and Sonny joins Rafael in sitting down. Through the humming of the transportation around them, the wind from Central Park brushes past them and birds pass over their heads, still maintained in the purple haze of Metaforá.

Sonny looks around them, marveling at how strange the world looks now but wondering how long they’ll stay in silence. Rafael strikes him as the type of person who couldn’t stay quiet if he wanted to. Even more evident is the fact that his problem in staying here stems from his stubbornness to admit that, perhaps, too much work is bad for him. Sonny doesn’t know Rafael, but he knows how hard it can be to admit to one’s own faults. And he can see, if he looks hard and long enough at the other man, that he knows he’s in Metaforá for a reason, he understands that reason, and he doesn’t blame Rita in the slightest for putting him here in the first place.

“Are you really here for me?”

Sonny bites back a smirk—if he doesn’t love to hear his voice, then he definitely loves to argue—and glances over at Rafael. “Why’re you asking?”

“Because you don’t strike me as the type of person who has nothing to lose.”

“Is that my only reason for being here?”

“It’s the one that makes sense to me.”

Sonny snorts and leans back. “Sure, I guess. All I really have is work. My only chance to see my family is on Sundays for Church. The most I can hang out with friends is after work with Mike and Olivia, who I already spend the majority of my time with. But when you say it like that,” he pauses to think on the words, trying to decipher their meaning, “I mean, what is there  _ not _ to lose, y’know?”

Rafael doesn’t immediately say anything. He looks at the outline of the path, arms crossed in front of his chest, his hands curling against his biceps. “That sounds like a good question for a college course on philosophy.” He chuckles. “We could have stayed at Columbia and taught it.”

Sonny laughs. “Sure. Are we gonna co-teach it or is one of us gonna be the TA?”

“Mm, we can work on the logistics later.”

Sonny looks over at Rafael, whose expression has deepened into a frown. He studies the crease of Rafael’s brow, dotted with violet slime, limited to the thoughts that must be brewing underneath the surface. Sonny gives him a small nudge. “What about you?”

“I…” Rafael shakes his head. He reaches up to drag a hand through his hair but he stops when he touches slime and pulls back with a grimace. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to ask me.”

“What do you have to lose?”

Rafael rolls his eyes. “So that’s why you said that.”

“No, I’m just asking. It was brought up in the conversation.” Sonny doesn’t have an ulterior motive, but if there’s a way to get Rafael to join him in returning to their world, he’ll take whatever he can get.

“Oh, sure, it’s just casually coming up,” Rafael scoffs. “I have spent more time here than I have spent at my own apartment in the past month. I may as well have re-enacted Jesus Christ walking through the desert for forty days with all the wandering I’ve done. I look like the subject of that fucking Halloween song. It’s taken me so long,” Rafael’s breath stutters as he sighs, “just to get used to the sound of people who are lucky enough to get out of here. And you join me in here, in what I can only assume is some sort of rescue mission, with your little bag and your little headphones and your dick-first walk, and you want to ask me,” his lips curl in a smile that is nothing but blinding fury, “what I have to lose?”

Sonny scoots closer; Rafael turns away from him with a huff. “If you’re so upset about it, why aren’t you saying it?”

“Saying what?”

“Rafael.” He’s fully turned away from now, so Sonny moves off of the bench and kneels in front of him. Rafael glowers at his new position, his eyes sharp and reflecting the poison in his gaze. “Why did Rita send you here?”

“She’s a shit friend with a twisted sense of humor.” Rafael scoots to the other side of the bench so he can stand up, but Sonny follows after him. “I don’t know what you want me to say!”

“I don’t want you to say anything but the truth,” he counters, voice just as bitter as Rafael’s. “When I look at you, I only see what you haven’t said to yourself because you’re too goddamn stubborn to admit you might have a problem.”

Rafael seethes under his breath; “I don’t have a problem.”

“And you believe that? You truly believe that you don’t have a problem here? Because if that’s the truth, and you just wanna live here for fun,” Sonny pulls out the jar Rita had given him and places it in Rafael’s hands, the spell that would open up a door for them to return swirling against the glass, “you tell me and I’ll leave. Rita cast a spell and bottled it so I could get back home, but I was told to come back with you. But if you’re so adamant that you’re doing the right thing, tell me right now and I won’t bother you anymore.”

Rafael holds his gaze for a moment drenched in silence. It’s evident now, from his eyes to the tension in his shoulders, that he can’t say the words. Sonny watches the stubborn facade fade away to someone who has suddenly realized he is just as lost as he was at the beginning of the week, and the week before that, and the week before that. And he knew all along, he just wasn’t going to reveal that fact.

With a muted sigh, Rafael shakes his head and returns the jar to Sonny’s hand. “Fuck,” he whispers as he bows his head, hunched forward over his knees. “You giraffe bastard. I’ve been avoiding that for months.”

Sonny just gives him a sad smile, returning the jar gently to his bag. “I think that’s obvious, considering where you are.” He returns to the bench and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Finally, Rafael can return home.

However, he doesn’t look like he’s ready for it. Rafael keeps the palms of his hands pressed against his forehead as if imprinting the shape there. “I’ve dedicated my life to law for twenty years, the past seven at my own firm. And yet I never thought I would regret it.”

“Regret what?” Sonny asks.

“Everything. My career, the firm, the cases I’ve put all of my energy into. I do it for myself, but I’m not,” he hesitates, then sits up, and breathes out, “happy. I enjoy what I do, and I won’t stop doing it. But it doesn’t make me happy and…I don’t know why.”

“Maybe you got tired of it. Y’know, it made you happy before, but now that it’s all you have, there’s nothing to make it special.”

Rafael, eyes trained on the ground, snorts. “If we’re going to get philosophical, you can take me out to dinner first.”

Sonny chuckles. “I won’t ask if you’re a friend of Dorothy’s, but I’m interested in a date if you are.”

This time, Rafael throws his head back in a laugh. It sounds a bit too forced but it’s something. Sonny will take whatever victory he can get. “I said it for a reason, didn’t I?” His expression slowly returns to the grave musing he had been in before. “Sonny, is it?”

He nods for the confirmation but remains silent.

“How do you find happiness when it feels like you’ve lost the ability to feel it?”

Sonny thinks on it before answering. “Little things, mostly. If I can meet a dog, I consider it a good day. Sometimes I draw to relieve stress, so I’ll head out to a park or somewhere public and just doodle. Architecture,” he adds. “The sharp angles help me get relaxed. But I’ll stop by the botanical garden when I wanna draw something in nature.”

Rafael looks up at that. “In the Bronx?” His lips quirk up in the barest resemblance of a smile when Sonny nods. “I haven’t been there in a long time. I grew up on Jerome Avenue, east of the garden. My abuelita and I would go for our birthdays and just walk for hours, not saying a word.” The smile grows, just a bit, at the memory. Sonny can’t help but smile back. “A simpler time, if you asked me.”

“That’s always how it goes, isn’t it? The times where our happiness is most genuine coming from the least amount of effort.

Rafael chuckles. “As easy as seeing a dog or walking through a garden.”

“I think both sound great,” Sonny says, nudging Rafael playfully and earning a jab in return. After a moment of silence, Sonny pulls out the jar from his bag. Rafael frowns when he sees it, more out of caution than trepidation. “I don’t wanna spring this on you, but whenever you feel ready to leave, just let me know and I’ll open the door for us.”

Rafael snorts at that. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. The second I go through, I’m not going to be able to withstand the change in the environment. My body hasn’t exactly been used for a week.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be there with you no matter what. Whenever you feel like making the journey back, you tell me.”

“I appreciate that.” The corners of his mouth twitch. “Keep talking like that, though, and you may be too good to be true.”

Sonny grins and shoots him a playful wink. “I’m full of surprises.”

* * *

They fall through the portal five minutes later—the second they tumble through to the other side, they’re back in the library. The reactions to their arrival are from places relatively the same from before Sonny left, so they must not have been any time changes between now and when he left. Sonny’s lungs scream as his body struggles to make up for the lack of breathing and his head pounds with the change in pressure. Their physical forms were more like decorations when they were in Metaforá, and the teleporters usually accommodate for any possible defects. But to be in Metaforá itself limits their bodies entirely. Sonny may as well have been underwater with the lack of oxygen he’s received.

Beside him, covered in as much slime as Sonny feels clinging to him, Rafael lays unmoving. His chest is still and his eyes are shut. Olivia is pressing against his sternum while Rita mumbles incantations under her breath. It takes a moment, but a stream of purple is yanked from his mouth, and Rafael’s gasps fill the air a moment later. Sonny thanks whichever god will listen that, at the very least, Rafael is awake. Rita and Olivia are helping him into a sitting position while Mike pulls the bag from his shoulder with a grimace.

“Sorry for the mess,” Sonny heaves. “Slimy.”

“I expected it,” Mike sighs. “Don’t like the smell, though.”

“Aw, really? I thought it was a nice touch.”

“Liar,” Rafael gasps, throat raspy and still coughing up purple. “No one can pull off burnt rubber.”

Sonny laughs, rolls onto his back, and shuts his eyes, peace settling in his limbs and lulling him to relax for the time being. 


	5. Closure

_ One month later _

“I want to thank you for helping me in Metaforá.”

Sonny looks over at Rafael, whose eyes have been trained on the butterflies fluttering around them for a good two minutes now. They haven’t spoken much since their date began—and it was very much a date, especially when they held hands and Sonny couldn’t stop marveling at how much the vivid petals of the flowers brought out Rafael’s eyes—but it’s been pleasant simply enjoying each other’s company, sharing a bench in the butterfly room and simply existing beside each other.

Rafael doesn’t say anything else after that, his eyes wandering to the butterflies fluttering above them. Sonny waits for him to go on and say the words, but he doesn’t continue. He starts to laugh at the lack of a response. He should have expected this from a man as closed-off and emotionally vague as Rafael. “Is that you thanking me?” Sonny smirks.

Rafael huffs. “I’m trying to say it, but as you can imagine, emotions are difficult.”

“I can take that.” Sonny nudges him when Rafael only rolls his eyes in response. “I want to say you’re welcome.”

It’s the slightest movement, but Rafael leans closer to him and gently places his head on his shoulder. Sonny presses his lips against his temple and smiles. He has experienced so much joy since he started seeing Rafael, even though he never thought it would extend to a month or so of seeing each other, let alone one night.

After Rafael and Sonny got out of Metaforá, effectively closing the case against the Presence in Columbia’s law library, they were treated for any setbacks or wounds they may have gotten from staying in Metaforá outside of the transportation barriers. Rafael was more of a concern due to the amount of time spent there but was cleared with a few listens of his chest and a murky concoction from Rita. Sonny checked on him in an official capacity, both of them strictly staying in the boundaries of Sonny’s work, but once he didn’t need to report on Rafael, Sonny stopped visiting him. And then Rafael made a rather showy appearance at his office and solidified their plans to go on a date. Sonny didn’t stop blushing for a few good days after that and Mike wasn’t going to let him live it down.

There was some good that came out of Rafael’s trap in Metaforá. Apparently, their investigation had called on international and inter-dimensional insight on Metaforá as a whole, including a conference that requested Olivia and her two investigators to share their findings and experiences. Rafael had given permission as long as he was credited; Sonny isn’t surprised by it, though he finds it a bit amusing that he’s turned what some would find a traumatic experience into a topic of discussion with little to no animosity or hostility when the topic is breached.

“How’re you doing,” Sonny asks suddenly, halting his pencil in his sketchbook and looking at Rafael, “with adjusting and everything?”

Rafael glances at him and then back to the butterflies, admiring a yellow-winged one that dances by. “Rita and I are fine, if that’s what you’re asking. And I’ve agreed to reevaluate my work balance.”

“That’s not what I meant, but that’s still good. Have you been talking to or thinking about talking to someone who could help with this sorta thing?”

He scoffs. “Are you interrogating me or simply snooping for info?”

Sonny frowns and sets aside his sketchbook so he can face Rafael properly. “I’m asking as someone who was asked how to feel happiness when you think you’ve lost it. And as someone who knows that you had a very loud and very lonely week outside of Metaforá’s transportation zones.”

Rafael doesn’t immediately answer. First, he crosses his legs and picks a piece of lint from his pants—even on a vacation from work, he dresses impressively well. His gaze wanders over Sonny, dances over the page of the sketchbook littered with butterflies and numerous cubic-like flower designs, lingering on the carnations shaded and reflecting the shadows of the insects above. Sonny has become accustomed to the way Rafael’s eyes flicker and sharpen before he speaks, but he sees a huge difference between expecting it and never getting used to it. He knows it’s going to happen when Rafael prepares to speak, but an excited thrill still races up his spine when he opens his mouth.

“I know,” Rafael says, voice wispy in a way that’s framed with regret. “It probably wasn’t the best time to bring something like that up. But I can’t take back what I said, and I’m not going to try. I did feel like I didn’t have anything to lose when I was in Metaforá. I don’t know what makes me happy anymore. The only thing I can say differently is that I know going back to work won’t be the same.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“To an extent. I’m looking forward to it for the first time in what feels like years.”

Sonny smiles at that; any improvement, no matter how small it may seem, was significant. “That’s good! I bet Rita’s looking forward to having you around again.”

“She is. The interns we found at Columbia are helpful, but they’re still in grad school, so they can only do so much.”

“Maybe they had a paranormal experience in the library and know who caused it.”

Rafael chuckles; Sonny can’t help but grin at the sound. “They could be. We should have vetted them beforehand.” He trails off then, and Sonny instantly loses himself in bright green. He forgets what he was doing, where he is, and what he was going to say—and all because someone looked at him with so much tenderness and care, he lost his voice. That’s definitely a first. He’s been caught by surprise at someone’s beauty or the way they act, but to be enamored with a look is something else entirely. Rafael’s eyes are seared into his mind, sharp and pointed in shades of jade that won’t stop admiring him. As if Sonny would ever want them to.

Sonny kisses him, just a soft peck at the corner of his mouth, but Rafael’s cheeks flare at the contact. He’s happy to be part of the recovery with Rafael, even if he isn’t the sole antidote. And if he was, he would have plenty of concerns to raise. But Rafael chats with Rita, sees a therapist, works a case, and takes Sonny out on dates that will end with a flurry of kisses and an embrace that calls for more nights together. Sonny will stick around for as long as Rafael will have him, through the worst of the world and beyond.


End file.
